i2 write a few lines to say
i received a letter from heyde3 yesterday
they all jeff4 and all set in for me to send
the letter to you and i thought i would last
night but to day i thought better of it
i thought it would only put you out
of temper as it did all of us) he first
began with saying hanna5 was so she
came out to the kichen and eat her meals
but she is very far from complete recovery
she is very frail constitutionally yet
her hand or rather her thumb by what he
says is quite bad and the flesh scrinks
from the bone) this may all be true
probably is) then he goes on to say that
she is better off with him that any change
would not benefit her or to that affect
with his highfullatin phrases) well now
for the second act) he says
he received
a very stupid letter from Walt addressed
to han6
which he humanely concluded not
to deliver to her and then he goes on to
quote the first part of the letter he says
it ran thus) i suppose my dear sister
duk.00558.002.jpg
you are by this time perfectly recovered
and the next) what a stupid man and
the balance he says7
is about nothing himself8
stuff i am out of patience let him stay
in washington he has but small credit
here i dont want to see him)
all this i have copied from his letter except where i marked above now walter what doo you think such a man is capable of doing i hope you have or will write to the Doctor and if you can go on there i should be glad matty9 says she makes no doubt the letter he kept from her was the one you spoke of her getting well enoughf when you came that she could come back with you i shall write to her and i shall write to him he is a very bad man very very but Walter dont lets think of him if han was away from him i should never want to hear his name again) we are having quite a snow storm to day here Jeffy and matty did think of going to Boston on monday next they will go to st louis is a couple of weeks it will be much the best for them and i shall be releived of a great care they will board martha is better than when she came but she cant doo much the children is trouble enoughf there is three girls down stairs and a jolly hous we have i tell you i am pretty well but get almost worked down
walt if you should get any wine10 send or take it if you go to han) write so i can get it tuesday and i will write again good bie walter dear
November 28, 1868 is the earliest possible date for this letter, and December 12, 1868 is the latest possible date; the most probable date for the letter is December 5, 1868. The subjects of this letter are consistent with late November and early December 1868, both the matter of Hannah (Whitman) Heyde's serious thumb infection and the presence of Thomas Jefferson "Jeff" Whitman and his wife Martha Mitchell "Mattie" Whitman in Brooklyn. Richard Maurice Bucke dated the letter to December 5, 1868, which fell on a Saturday. Edwin Haviland Miller accepted Bucke's date (Walt Whitman, The Correspondence [New York: New York University Press, 1961–77], 2:366). December 5 is the most probable date, though the letter could fall a week earlier.
The letter very likely precedes Charles Heyde's December 8?, 1868 letter to Louisa Van Velsor Whitman, which describes the surgical amputation of Hannah's thumb (Clarence Gohdes and Rollo G. Silver, ed., Faint Clews & Indirections: Manuscripts of Walt Whitman and His Family [Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1949], 225; Edwin Haviland Miller, ed., Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, 2:72–73, n. 37). Walt's December 8, 1868 letter to Samuel W. Thayer, in response to Hannah's November 24, 1868 letter to Walt (Trent Collection), corroborates the assumption that this letter is unlikely to date before November 28 or after December 12 (Miller, Correspondence, 2:72–73, n. 37). As Louisa's letter seconded Hannah's request to have Walt write to Thayer in her November 25, 1868 letter to Walt, Walt's letter to Hannah, which Charles Heyde intercepted, and Heyde's letter to Louisa, which Louisa summarized in this letter, followed in rapid succession. Therefore, this letter from Louisa to Walt is from early December but not after Hannah's surgery. It is likely also to follow Louisa's November 30–December 3, 1868 letter to Walt, which offers further details about Hannah's thumb problems from Heyde's letter. It is possible (but unlikely) that this letter dates to the Saturday after Louisa's request to Walt to write Thayer (November 28), but it dates no later than the Saturday following Hannah's surgery (December 12).
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